The early days of Internet bullet boards and forums, that focused on one specific niche. Where I stumbled upon the posts from time traveler John Titor or TimeTravel_0. Good times reading those and becoming fascinated with the what if aspect of it all.
Check out Paul Dienach. It’s interesting how time traveler stories are so rare compared to abduction stories. I guess it just takes that much more effort.
I’m not even saying this to be a broken record, but that site is fucking unusable without 3rd party apps. Just tried to read through that thread and it’s pointless, it’s a complete mess. I need like a picture gallery of the comments worth reading from that thread, lol. 😂
There are several, but one that kind of haunts my mind is the story from the guy who experienced another life in a blackout and had it all torn apart by that fucking lamp.
The story of how a woman lost her daughter because the grandmother didn’t believe that the girl’s coconut allergy was real, despite years of watching the parents trying to find out the allergen so that they could stop the girl from winding up in the emergency room. The grandmother kept the kid overnight and used coconut oil on her hair; the child went into anaphylaxis and died.
The mother said that the grandmother begs her to see her other grandchildren, as they’ve now cut ties with her; the mom’s response was, “You can come over when you bring my daughter with you.”
A horrible story of how some people just believe they know better than everyone, including doctors.
I have legitimate fears of letting my fiance’s crazy conservative parents ever have our kids alone. To this day her dad will come out of nowhere with a 10 minute prepared speech about how covid isn’t real, which is always followed by the entire family being silent and wondering to ourselves, “who the fuck even asked you anything at all?”
I’ve had some “thought I was into this” moments in my life, but thankfully I’ve always started small and worked my way up. Well, with one exception. That was rough. But never anything like that. My God.
That hall of fame Reddit thread where a guy announced he will try heroin just one time, then comes back to explain how the experience was and how he will try again. Over the course of many posts we see persons entire life unravel as other posters scream of the top of their lungs for him to stop.
Never figured if it was real or scripted, but hella effective.
Oh yea. /u/SpontaneousH was the account. I think about that story every time I read or hear something about Heroin. Even if it’d be fake, this story influenced my view of heroine more than any movie, video or article about it.
As a recovering heroin addict, I wholeheartedly believe his story. His later stories contained some region-specific drug slang and his post-recovery updates were the perfect amount of mundane and specific for me to recognize exactly the same feelings in myself.
Side note: if you’re watching a movie or TV show, one thing that non-junkie writers never get right is withdrawal. They often show characters skipping withdrawal entirely, or show them mildly sick but still moving through the story without any real issues. Worst case, they’ll show a character being sick and then totally fine after a short time. Huge pet peeve of mine. Really undersells the catch-22 you find yourself in when using heroin.
What withdrawal is actually like is pure, unadulterated misery and suffering for two weeks at minimum, followed by months or even a year of exhaustion, depression, suicidal thoughts, restlessness, and feeling like everything is weird and new. It feels like you’re a reptile that just shed its skin and everything is raw including your emotions and thoughts. Those first two weeks are just nonstop puking, shaking, sweating, an uncontrollable urge to kick and jerk your body, total insomnia, scary and suicidal thoughts, full body aches and pains, and enough self-loathing to last a thousand years.
I made it three months cold turkey once before relapsing. Fucking never again. I honestly don’t know how people quit dope before modern medications like Buprenorphine and Methadone.
Feeling like you want to break the cycle of addiction but knowing you can’t get through the withdrawal is an incredibly scary and traumatic experience.
Have you watched Euphoria? I’ve never had experience with drugs like that but I feel it’s got representation of addiction and withdrawals. Some recovering addicts say it spoke to them and others say they can’t watch it because it’s too triggering, so I’d totally understand if you haven’t seen it. The special Rue episode in between the two seasons is spectacular at showing a recovering addict trying to talk sense into a struggling one.
I recall he disappeared for Multiple years and then came back saying he became a junk, had been in addiction clinics and was finally clean after years.
Does it have to be a true story? I love the story about the grandma who knitted a jumper or something for her grand son and accidentally summoned a demon. But she didn’t understand and thought it was her grandson and he -the demon- just hung around an ate sandwiches and kept her company.
Sadly, the original is lost to time, way back in the dial-up internet era. It was originally on the Darwin awards forum. It went on for pages and pages, all written in properly and formally. It was glorious.
The basic premise was 2 fold. 1. Buttered bread always lands butter side down. 2. Cats always land on their feet. Assume both of these as absolute facts. What would happen if you strapped a piece of buttered bread, butter side up, to the back of a car?
Incidentally, if anyone knows of a copy of the original, I would love to read through it again.